


Across Aeons

by helena_s_renn



Series: Eleven Strings – yksitoista kieltä [4]
Category: Def Leppard, The Dark Element
Genre: AU, Angst, Bottom Sav, Jealousy, M/M, My Sweet Mystery, Open Relationships, Pining, music video, top joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:43:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12340194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helena_s_renn/pseuds/helena_s_renn
Summary: Joe makes Sav watch a certain video.A few moments of jealousy are the result.The laptop is *cough* in the line of fire.





	Across Aeons

**Author's Note:**

> Never happened, not true! Author is using said video for personal fanfic needs. See the tags. 
> 
> However it comes across, this is NOT non-con. But if you're extra sensitive you might want to hit the back button.
> 
> *Sav does not hear all the lyrics quite right. Starred where he mis-hears a couple of words.
> 
> Thanks to ChristianHowe for review, beta, and putting up with my bullshit.

-2017 

"Have you seen this yet?" 

"Seen what?" 

Joe gestured at Sav to sit at the table that his home soundboard lived on, where an open laptop also rested. He fixed that green-eyed devil's stare on him, and wouldn't budge. 

"Alright. Fine." Sav seated himself, noting that Joe didn't sit next to him but remained standing directly behind him. He waited. Youtube was open, with a video by a band he'd never heard of queued up, paused. Three days since it was posted, 30k+ hits. Not the hit of the summer but quite respectable for unknowns.

Reaching over and around him, Joe used the track pad to hit play. Sound came through the studio speakers: odd, music box notes, accompanied on the screen by a fuzzy landscape at the top like it had been taken by a jet pilot flying upside down. Sav looked up over his right shoulder questioningly; Joe just waved at the display.

Ah, ok, the real music kicked in, heavy, the guitar and bass chugging like they were pushing uphill. Sav recognised a 5-string bass at the bottom end; a 4- wouldn't go that low. 

There was the band, set up in what appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. Chick singer, guitar, bass, drums. Who...? No. No way. That fucker behind him wasn't that much of a bastard. Sav's eyes slid to the instrument wielded by the bassist. He hadn't actually seen one of those being used before. That angled bridge configuration looked sharp, and the guy's speed and tone...! In the back, the drummer bludgeoned his kit like it had personally offended him, showy with waving his sticks high.

The vocalist had a clear, almost perfectly pitched alto voice. Of course it was dubbed and she was lip-syncing, but either she was that good or their producer was. Sav could tell by the shape of her face and arms she was not all that much younger than they were, but she possessed a certain youthful hopefulness and elan. 

The guitarist... he'd kind of had an idea, had kind of known, had deliberately denied what he was seeing and pushed it aside for the first thirty seconds. When he gathered enough balls to look and full recognition broke over him, Sav could not stop the almighty gasp, nor one hand from flying to his face. Every muscle in his body locked into an angst-ridden cramp.

Calling Joe's tone 'leading' would have been a serious understatement. "Well?" 

"Nice rack," rasped Sav. Shift the focus. Redirect. What he said, while crass, was true enough. He wondered how much double-sided tape they'd had to use. 

"No. Look." Joe's voice wasn't having a good day. It grated harsh like he'd smoked way too much weed, drank way too much whiskey, then tried to sing something way too high for him on top of it.

"Wha-?" Sav started a second time, as he made to get up. From his position behind, Joe pushed him back down, held him there, reached around to grasp his chin and make him face the swirl of imagery and light. Ten seconds more and Sav was whispering, "Oh, god... Oh, fuck." Echoes of the past. He mouthed a name, so glad Joe couldn't see him, though of course he'd have felt Sav's jaw move. Joe choked, but he was quiet for a while, holding Sav in place so he couldn't turn away.

After the first verse and chorus, Joe found his words; his hands were so strong, pressing bruises into Sav's upper arm. "Think he wrote it?"

Sav watched flailing red-and-black hair, darker than he remembered; the person throwing it around was definitely older, bearded now, but still entirely and uniquely recognizable. The words to the chorus left no doubt: _"...give it all for you... everything I am for you..."_ Fresh cuts on old wounds. To me, for you, it was all the same. He dry-swallowed around the boulder in his throat. "Guessing so, yeah." 

He still used that stance, the same style of dress. Those jeans were not off the rack, designed to pull one's eyes to the multiple horizontal seams. Sav tried and failed not to look but he couldn't help it when he caught flashes of silver buckle, silver buttons. Said person whipped his hair again, down-picked like he'd die otherwise, braced his axe between his legs and stroked the thing like... _...you're exceptional, *unexpendable..._ the singer wailed. Sav knew the feeling. 

"He's passionate." 

The interruption to the solo in the wrong accent made Sav jerk under Joe's hands, but he was no longer trying to get away. Had he chosen to grace the unnecessary remark with a response, he might have sung Yes, hell yes, fuck yes, in all the languages in which he knew the words and then in tongues. _Come to me..._ Rather, he didn't engage. 

"What's wrong with 'iz guitar? Looks weird. Izzat... seven strings?" 

Remembering the humorous description of how playing such a creation made him feel, Sav mm-hm'd. 

"And you play five." 

"Long before," Sav hiccupped. "As you well know." 

Another displeased rumble. "Look at you. Wrecked. I'll bet you're hard." 

Maybe he was. But then part of that was because Joe had put hands on him, wouldn't leave him alone. At the end of five minutes of the guitarist refusing to acknowledge the camera, Joe froze the screen. The song had ended and the figure slowly bowed its head, 'thank you' or 'you're welcome' unknown. Strong Yorkshire broke in again: "I'd say it makes me sick, but it kind of... affects me otherwise, too." In the quick breath and exhale above him, Sav could hear distress. "I think I might hate you right now."

"Nah, mate. You hate yourself." Where had that come from? Sav had never called called Joe out about any of it. The status quo between them for four decades had been seriously disrupted by the brief but forever unforgettable idyll. At the time, all involved parties had shrugged it off. Or not.

Joe hauled Sav to his feet and kicked the chair aside, only to shove his head down on to the only free space of table. "Don't you _ever_ forget who you belong to." 

One eye fixed on the screen, Sav growled back, just as obstinate, "I won't."

He welcomed the tearing of his clothes and the too-fast breach of the angry snake he knew was in his cards. So, Sav reflected as his spot was hammered on again and again by the one who always knew exactly what he needed, who had made "What Sav Needs" a lifetime study, that's why Joe had been so surly and toppish the last few days.

Not satisfied he had enough leverage, Joe yanked Sav up, grabbed his right leg and hoisted the knee up on the table, pushed him down again. If he hadn't put his hands out to catch himself, Sav would have gone chest-down on the open notebook. "I'm gonna fall over..." 

"Nuh-uh. I got you." Then it was a real reach-around, just as mean and nasty as the fucking, hands and hips flying, Sav screaming blasphemy in the soundproofed room while Joe poured into him like hot molten steel and his own overflowed in bursts of translucent pearl. He had to look away from the sight of it oozing down the screen in three places. 

Possibly the computer was ruined. Keyboards were notorious for letting stray drips and drops into the inner workings, and besides the screen there were miniature finger lakes over the space bar and the 2, J, O and the 6 on the 10-key. It wouldn't be the first to die this way. Joe pulled out too fast and Sav felt ruined, as well. He was going to waddle like an expectant mother duck till he could clean up. He slowly levered himself upright, while Joe rustled with fixing his clothes. Sav might just burn his.

"So... 'd you see his hand?"

Jesus, would this never end? Spinning around, Sav held up the corresponding one of his own, middle finger raised. Just beside it though, the dull gleam of old gold. No public record made it official, the opposite in fact. Sav's partner only smirked. "Happy Anniversary to you, too."

Fin.


End file.
